The Federal Constitution by David Barton
This was the prevalent sentiment across America. In fact, signer of the Declaration Charles Carroll (a Roman Catholic) even declared that the reason that he and many other Founders had entered the Revolution was to ensure that all Christian denominations were placed on an equal footing: To obtain religious as well as civil liberty I entered jealously into the Revolution, and observing the Christian religion divided into many sects, I founded the hope that no one would be so predominant as to become the religion of the State. That hope was thus early entertained, because all of them joined in the same cause, with few exceptions of individuals.
Although this was the tone common among the States, it was not the result of any provision of the federal Constitution. The constitutional prohibition against “an establishment of religion” forbade only the federal establishment of a national denomination.
Earlier generations long understood this, and thus prevented any misapplied enforcements of those constitutional provisions. Notice, for example, Justice Story’s clear articulation: We are not to attribute this [First Amendment] prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity (which none could hold in more reverence, than the framers of the Constitution. Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the Amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State. An attempt to level all religions and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference would have created universal disapprobation disapproval if not universal indignation.
Notice, too, the same clear understanding expressed in the 1853-1854 House and Senate Judiciary Committee reports: House Judiciary Committee: What is an establishment of religion? It must have a creed defining what a man must believe; it must have rites and ordinances which believers must observe; it must have ministers of defined qualifications to teach the doctrines and administer the rites; it must have tests for the submissive and penalties for the nonconformist.
David Barton – Also, it should be purposeful. Worship should be purposeful. And here is the purpose. Romans 16:6 LB says, “All of us can praise the Lord together with one voice.”